But Donald Trump lost California by a 2-1 margin, the worst loss for a
major-party presidential nominee here since 1936. The Republican share of the
state’s voters is 26 percent and shrinking, and the party faces a deep divide
on how to reverse its fortunes.

At one time it was 29%. Now it's slipping. Migration and frustration are taking their toll on the state party and the registration. Prop 14 has not helped.

Many say the party needs to soften its posture on undocumented
immigrants and social issues to attract more Latino, Asian and young voters.

The language alone is so biased. "Undocumented"? Really? How about "illegal"? Does the Republican Party want to take cues from the press?

How can anyone expect to win minority voters who are pro-family by embracing liberal views? Again, the liberal press and their press junkies are the last ones to go for advice. More to follow:

Others, particularly in the GOP’s traditional voter base, counter that
Trump’s victory nationwide is proof that a stronger stance is called for.

Yes. Caving on principles has actually driven people away from the Republican Party. Orange County is still conservative, for example, but Republicans are not voting, or they leaving.

At stake is the very relevance of the Republican Party in California.

The party has lost relevance, but the party system in general is under attack because of Proposition 14, which has eliminated the closed primaries and eliminated a number of Republican contenders in races throughout the state, including Los Angeles County.

“Logically, they cannot win elections the way they’re going,” said
Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of CSU Los Angeles’ Pat Brown Institute
for Public Affairs. “But if they go a different direction, it’s going to create
a big fight within the party.”

Do I really care what Raphe Sonenshein thinks? This man is an uber-liberal from Cal State Los Angeles. He is a mouth-piece for left-wing dogmas of all kinds. I have no interest in what this man thinks about conservative values or politics.

He is a blight on the discussion! The last person that anyone should cater to is this guy!

But he does have a point on one matter--lurching the party to the left (or the "center" as the more politically correct like to claim) is going to create a YUGE fight. It already has, since the 2015 convention, which saw the removal of "illegal alien" from

The dilemma reared its head Dec. 5, the first day of the state
legislative session.

The 72 Democrats in the Assembly and Senate all voted for a resolution
critical of President-elect Donald Trump’s various campaign proposals on
immigration. Two Republicans supported it, voting with Democrats, and 19
abstained. Only 17 Republicans stood with the incoming GOP president and voted
against it.

Republican lawmakers are behaving in a gutless fashion. The disarray on key values is deeply disturbing. Republican Assembly minority leader did not help matters when he claimed that Donald Trump was "divisive" while slamming the Democratic Party majority's show-boating with two offensive resolutions against "mass deportation."

“The bill (said) a lot of good things about the contributions of
immigrants,” said Sen. Janet Nguyen, R-Fountain Valley, a Vietnamese immigrant
who abstained. “I’m a product of that. ... My family was on welfare and I have
held minimum-wage jobs. Not everybody who is on welfare is abusing the system.”

She needs to understand that "immigrant" must apply to those individuals who entered the country legally. "When words lose their meaning, the people lose their freedom.'

While she objected to the combative approach of Democrats, she
supported many aspects of the resolution. Republicans, she said, should focus
on common ground for all Californians.

The issue is no longer about common ground. It's all about trying to stop the Democratic demagogues from running the state of California into the ground!

We need a principled, consistent opposition in Sacramento, and right now it's simply not happening!

“We need to be able to talk about health care and education, and
continue to talk about jobs and the economy,” she said.

But why don't we? The Democratic colossus is only interested in consolidating more power for the left-wing aristocracy of public sector union guilds, welfare queens, and illegal aliens. We the People are turning into serfs and second-class citizens in our country. One limited interest gets to dictate its policies and force its agenda at the expense of everyone else. This is corrupt. This is evil. This is wrong.

And it needs to be confronted. Playing nice is not working. Republicans in Sacramento either need to be ready for a fight, or need to go home and let someone else serve in the state legislature. I remember reading about one Inland Empire Republican who just decided to quit because he "got tired and frustrated with working in the state legislature."

Did he really think that it was going to be tea and cake up there? We expect our elected officials to put up some kind of fight.

Most of them are just collecting a paycheck, layering up their resume, then looking for a cushy local job to retire early into guaranteed incumbency.

Raphael, go away. Just go away!

Nguyen, a former county supervisor and city council member, is one
model for Republican success. While her working-class district has more
Democratic voters than Republicans and more Latino voters than Vietnamese, she
easily beat former Assemblyman Jose Solorio, a Latino Democrat, to claim her
seat in 2014.

It was an incredibly low voter turnout. It was so low, that Democratic lawmakers in the Southeastern stretches of Los Angeles County finished below 60%. That never happens. Republicans should not have to depend on very low turnout to win.

It would be nice to enforce voter integrity in California. How about Voter ID? How about repealing the ridiculous and criminal automatic "Motor Voter" law?!

Nguyen supports a pathway to legal status for most of those in the
country illegally and empathizes with families fearful of being broken up
because of deportation.

NO! HELL NO!

Legal status would be terrible. We would have a permanent under-class of migrants, just like in France, where violence and lawlessness become the norm.

Sorry, Republicans, but winning elections is about standing on principle, and winning that way. Or not talking about certain issues altogether. Why are local and state legislative officials talking about immigration? That issue belongs to Congress, to the federal government.

Redlands’ John Berry, a California coordinator for the Tea Party
Patriots, is on the other side of the GOP divide. He wants undocumented
immigrants deported.

There we go again. "Undocumented" is all wrong. "Illegal alien." Republicans should not roll over for every idea from the press. To solve some of these problems, however, requires stiff resistance to this leftist lunacy from President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress.

Also notice no reference to stopping public sector union abuse? Or what about ending welfare abuse?

Not a word. Why is that?!

“Republicans need to take tough stances on social issues and
immigration,” he said. “Like so many Republicans, I’m very frustrated with the
California Republican Party. They don’t stand up for anything.”

"Tough", "true", "accurate" -- I am open to all of these terms. Principled is a good word, too.

He said Tea Party activists knocked on 15,000 doors in his hometown on
behalf of Trump.

What about representative reforms? How about enacting Proportional representation, in which Presidential candidates win electoral votes based on the number of Congressional districts they carry--just like Nebraska and Maine?

“Our key issue was illegal immigration, and our people were
well-received,” Berry said. He believes the issue can attract Latino and Asian
citizens to the party, arguing that Trump did better with those groups than
Mitt Romney did four years ago.

I like that word "Citizen." And the demographics in this state will shift one way or another. There are more Asian immigrants entering our state--and Asian illegal aliens, too. Those who entered this country legally, who have formed ties and built families, become more conservative over time. They will be ready to join GOP ranks, if only people will show up and bring them in.

Exit polling by the National Election Pool, whose data are used by TV
networks and The New York Times, found that 29 percent of both Latinos and
Asians voted for Trump. Romney received 21 percent of the Latino vote and 18
percent of the Asian vote, according to the group.

More minorities voted for Trump. Guess what? He reached out to them and he connected with them moreso in swing states. California is too large, and the media markets are so expensive. The ground game is shot, as well.

Where is the coordination? Where are the Central Committees to work with grassroots leaders and activists to make a difference in the state?

“As they establish their roots in this country, they see how illegal
immigrants are hurting the country,” he said, saying undocumented workers
undercut wages, among other things.

Repeat after me, liberal media: ILLEGAL ALIEN!

But others dismiss that part of the National Election Pool’s exit polling,
calling it an unreliable outlier in measuring minority voter sentiment.
Sonenshein is among those who favor Latino Decisions’ bilingual polling of
Latino voters, which showed 18 percent favored Trump nationwide.

What did I tell you about Raphe boy? He is bad news, a left-wing pundit who wants everyone and everything to reflect his backward, disgusting illiberal views.

A ground plan

Jim Brulte, chairman of the California Republican Party, is intensely
aware of the need to connect better with the growing populations of Latinos
(now 28 percent of the state’s voting-age citizens) and Asians (11 percent).

Sitting on a post-election panel last month, Brulte laid out the future
demographics in stark terms: Of Californians who will reach voting age in the
next decade, 52 percent are Latino and 11 percent are Asian. Just 16 percent of
Latinos and 23 percent of Asians now register as Republican, he said.

I do not agree with the Chairman on this assessment. I told him plainly and respectful. Goodness knows that I have shared my massive disagreements with the man. Focus on demographics alone is not reliable, anyway. These numbers will change.

“We didn’t get in trouble overnight,” he said at the event, held at the
National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “It took 30 years. And we’re not going
to be out of trouble” overnight.

What are some disturbing trends which overtook California in those 30 plus years?

California is not historically a Democratic stronghold. Since 1920,
it’s voted for the Democratic presidential nominee 13 times and the Republican
12 times. It voted for the Republican every election from 1968 to 1988.

No kidding.

But it’s gone with the Democrat each year since. Every statewide
elected official, including the governor and both U.S. senators, is a Democrat,
and the state’s congressional delegation skews heavily Democratic, 39-14.
Democrats also picked up four seats this election in the state Legislature,
giving the party a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers.

Thank you, Prop 14, for removing our chance to have Republican lawmakers running for statewide office, particularly the United States Senate.

“California is a state that wants to vote Democratic,” Brulte said at
the event. “It’s going to be that way for a long time. It’s been trending that
way for a long time. And now the Democrats get to own it. I’m fascinated by who
they’re going to blame when the economy cycles down and the mythology that we
have a balanced budget exposes itself.”

Trends can change, but these changes will require force from on high, from the federal government.

But he’s also not sitting idly on the sidelines.

“Our plan has been to rebuild from the ground up,” he said.

That means tilling the fields at the school board, city council and
county supervisor level. While demographic changes have pushed Democrats to
within 4 percentage points of Republicans among voters in the traditional GOP
stronghold of Orange County, all five of the county supervisors are Republicans
– as are the vast majority of city council members.

Now the good news trickles in. Republicans are kicking butt at the local level. Republicans have taken over the Board of Supervisors in Orange and San Diego Counties!

How about that! Republicans also can Board seats in San Luis Obispo County, too.

Republicans, who have a dedicated organization called Grow Elect to
recruit and support Latino candidates, also boast that they now have two Latino
Republicans on the school board in heavily Democratic Santa Ana.

Yes.

Republicans also hold all five seats on the board of supervisors in San
Diego County, where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

Part of the GOP’s success on the local level has to do with the
relative absence of partisan immigration and social issues. In that, lies a
lesson.

More importantly, Republicans are not corrupt and given over to special interest conniving, like the Democrats.

“The challenge going forward is to find issues that the base and the
rapidly growing new voter group agree on,” Brulte told the Register. He pointed
specifically to charter schools as a winning issue for low-income areas and to
GOP-favored initiatives to create jobs.

YES!

“The way you grow any organization is to focus on the issues that unite
you and divide the other side,” he said.

“If we can ever figure out how to get it right, we will provide a road
map for the country,” he added. “Because the country is looking a lot more like
California.”

I disagree with this assessment.

The country is not turning into California.

Californians are fleeing California.

Transcendent candidates

But having a strategy and actually turning around the steady declines
are two different things. That’s especially true with illegal immigration
rooted as a central issue for much of the GOP’s traditional base and unlikely
to be easily reconciled between the two Republican factions.

“For internal reasons, it’s going to be quite difficult for them to
change in California,” Sonenshein said.

The first change and the easiest change? Stop listening to liberal lunacy, like the self-important pontificating of college professors who want an aggressive left-wing agenda devouring the state of California.

Immigration aside, the state’s voters gave plenty of other signals in
November that they prefer left-leaning policies, approving ballot measures
legalizing recreational marijuana use, increasing gun control and banning
plastic bags.

Yes. This is a huge problem, the result of the leftist take over of education, from K-12 to college (although colleges are starting to look more and more like bigger versions of kindergarten, complete with safe spaces and snacks for the adult children).

But examples of what has worked for California Republicans come up
repeatedly, and they are often stories of individuals like Nguyen who
transcended political partisan labels by tapping directly into the gestalt of
their communities. San Diego’s Kevin Faulconer and Fresno’s Ashley Swearengin,
both Republican mayors of Democratic cities, are among others mentioned as
doing the same.

Faulconer is losing more supporter, and Ashley Swearingen is embracing the very policies which are ruining the state, including Governor Brown's crazy train and the Cap and Tax program.

Who needs Republicans like these?!

“You spend all this time discussing what the party should do and then
somebody shows up and runs with a message different than the party and they
win,” Sonenshein said, citing both Trump and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
as such renegades.

God bless Donald Trump. Schwarzenegger sucked.

After Romney’s 2012 loss, the Republican Party produced a road map for
the future that called for numerous changes, including an approach to
immigration reform that would appeal more to Latinos and social policies that
were more in tune with young voters.

This is wrong. It's time to stand for our values and educate others rather than abandoning them and caving to the Democratic failures.

Trump turned his back on many of those recommendations – as well as
some more traditional GOP positions, including free trade – and created his own
winning formula.

HE WON! He resonated with vast swaths of the country.

California is out of joint. We are not on the cutting edge. We are getting left behind. California is backward, lost, regressive.

“You don’t create a candidate by talking about direction the party
should go,” Sonenshein said. “The candidate shows up and defines themself.”

"Define themself." Yes, a college professor actually wrote that.

Another reason to write him off and not listen to his lunacy.

Final Reflection
Conservatives need to accept that this is a culture war, not just politics.

I think that Republicans in general are just tinkering around the edges and staving off the death spiral by shifting away from the values and principles which define the party. All of this is fundamentally irrelevant when public sector unions can buy politicians and purchase assembly seats without thinking twice about it.

How more of those who vote for a living are outwinning those who work for a living? How long can this anti-economic insanity continue?

Some cynical voices in the state and in the party have suggested that the state of California may have to collapse under its own weight. The free ride on taxpayer hides cannot last forever. Detroit eventually went bust. So will San Francisco and Los Angeles.

And We the People are going to get tired of the public safety concerns going unnoticed by our elected officials, who are more committed to protect their jobs and Theiler legacy instead of protecting our rights.